Unified Galactic agent Mara Brannigan has more in mind than a quick snatch and scram when she sits down on a bar stool in a sleazy dive on Bonmim. Oh, she planned on a quick snatch alright, but what would it hurt to play with her quarry like a cat with a mouse—or in this case, like a lonely, sex-starved woman with a lookalike pair of sexy auburn-haired men who could give her just what she needed—at least for a little while, before she had to take them into custody.

Everyone else in the bar took the argumentative Derrick and Red Ravenscraft for identical twins, but she knew differently. They were actually one and the same man, one Captain Frederick Ravenscraft, a space trader who’d had the misfortune of being duplicated through a rare space anomaly. Scientists at the Capitol Science Headquarters wanted to study them for the benefit of mankind, but the matching pair of hardheads insisted on ignoring UGA’s summonses to present themselves for what she knew to be harmless study. So now it was her duty to bring them in.

In the six months they’d existed separately, the Captains Ravenscraft rarely agreed with each other. On anything. More often than not, their disagreements led to fistfights fueled by their basic disagreement over who was the real Frederick Ravenscraft. When each laid eyes on Mara, it figured that with a room full of available women, they’d both want her. But when she gets knocked unconscious in their brawl with an unhappy client’s hired muscle, they have no choice but to flee Bonmim and take Mara with them. When she awakens to find herself onboard their ship, which is not on Bonmim anymore, she figures she might as well pass the time until she has to take the delicious Captains into custody by getting better acquainted with them—horizontally.

It doesn’t take long for Mara to realize that rough, tough Derrick and sweet, caring Red mean more to her than just a temporary diversion. Likewise, the Captains fall hard for the beguiling Mara, realizing quickly that they have to make a choice. They either have to give themselves up to her and let her take them in. Or kidnap her for real. But first, they had to stop a barrage of space parasites from eating their way through the ship until it had as many holes in it as swiss cheese and the three of them end up flotsam in the airless void of space.

Mirror Image by Mima and Bonnie Dee is virtually a story about The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful; although I wouldn’t exactly say that Derrick is bad. He’s just the rougher, tougher, crasser side of the total man that was once Frederick Ravenscraft. Apparently, neither duplicant liked the name Frederick (I don’t blame them), which explains why they call themselves Derrick and Red. Although they’re virtual mirror images, (except for Derrick’s scar and shorter hair), I loved the aspect that they weren’t cerebral carbon copies, but rather diverse halves of the same whole. Red, my favorite of the two, was the softer, more sensitive side of Frederick’s former self, yet he was the one willing to sacrifice himself so that Derrick and Mara could live. Still, as much as I liked Red, I wouldn’t have been able to choose between them anymore than Mara could. She comes off early on as tough and adept at her job, yet vulnerable and compassionate. I liked those qualities about her. She’s the kind of woman who can be one of the boys, yet be all woman with her special man. Or in this case, her special men.

The sex scenes in this book absolutely smolder. They’re well-written and contribute to telling the story by differentiating the men’s personalities. At times, Mara needed the softer, more perceptive side of Frederick and at other times, she needed his fiercer, more dominating side. The one scene where there’s male/male interaction doesn’t come off in any way as homosexual. I was really impressed at how adroitly the authors pulled that off. Unfortunately, the length of this book just does not do the story’s wonderful premise justice. There were so many entertaining moments in Mirror Image, but the rushed, anti-climatic ending was not one of them.

I would love to see this book turned into a full-length novel, beginning when Frederick was duplicated and taking the duplicants through their scientific study and what Mara would have had to suffer through being separated from them during that time. An ending where they would have perhaps becomes agents themselves to rescue Mara from a tight spot would have been wonderful, especially with Ms. Dee as one of the authors. She has been a favorite or mine for a long time. I definitely detected her special touch in the character of Red, as her books are always written from the heart. Perhaps someday she’ll do a revision of this book in which she can ply her wonderful talent more effectively.